Pacific Rim looked promising, but turns out a major disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (13 July 2013)

This review should be prefaced by the fact that I never saw the preview before coming to see the movie, so I was not needlessly spoiled to know the details and visuals of the movie, except a few publicity photos that piqued my interest.
Much have been said about the movie by some noteworthy reviewers who reacted negatively. Suffice to say I found the movie to be an overambitious yet tepid attempt, which led to my struggle to sit through the movie, partly bored and mostly offended, for the reasons to be outlined by me.
First, the visual effects and colorfully vibrant cinematography, in conjunction with 3-D, are spectacular, but occasionally bombastic and redundant. What matters is the story and proper characterization with plausible and non-cringeworthy dialogue, which is difficult to pull off in a big concept movie like Pacific Rim.
I found the characterization of German-descent roles offensive in perpetuating the stereotype, such as the "dorky" mathematician, on top of ethnic stereotyping. In my mind, the most offensive stereotype in the movie is the irritatingly patronizing military leader played by Idris Elba, who might be familiar as having starred as the Norse God Heimdallr in the revisionist adaptation of "Thor".
Despite the backstory established in the first ten minutes, the movie never felt right, only frequently dull due to the feeling of "deja vu" (having seen some big monster and mecha movies) and redundant monster versus mecha fight scenes.
I came to see the movie, expecting a fun ride. But this movie is certainly not fun, at least pertaining to the questionable story arcs, occasional cringeworthy corny dialogue, stilted acting, excessively bombastic visual effects and production design ("eye candy"), disturbing scenes of violence that pushes PG-13 rating boundary, and, of course, stereotype and cliché galore.
I noted the general audience's mood was not quite receptive to Pacific Rim after the conclusion. Muted and perplexed reaction. I knew what I'm getting into, being familiar with mecha (the glacial but riveting Patlabor anime movies), but this movie just feels flat-out mediocre, which lends to disappointed feeling in deflated expectation.
Pacific Rim is certainly an overambitious movie, with the co-writer and director Guillermo del Toro being aggravatingly self-indulgent as usual like in his preceding movies (I remember Pan's Labyrinth being obnoxiously didactic with gory violence when it came out in theatres to the audience's disgusted reaction).
The movie is in essence childish in its reverence for self-serving moralistic approach, smirk-evoking cheese (in particular stilted acting & overacting with some eye-rolling dialogue), visual spectacle and PG-13-stretching violence.
Guillermo del Toro is almost a good movie director, but he self-sabotages by focusing on the repetition and clichés, which not even film editing could save by excising some lame and extraneous scenes. (It is said the movie has an hour of extra footage.) Del Toro is one of the ultimate "geek" movie directors, the other his best friend James Cameron, but somehow Del Toro falls back on the standard clichés and stereotypes with the "more is more" bloated spectacle, which leads to the frustration of watching the movie as it repeatedly sabotages itself that lends to dull and exasperated feeling, which may explain the audience's near-universal negative impression.
Pacific Rim has some merits, such as the astoundingly high production values, but the factors described above basically killed the movie in terms of mere enjoyment. The movie seems to mock the audience by patronizing attitude with stereotypical characterization, redundant monster versus mecha fight sequences that feel padded out and ineptly manipulative emotional scenes that feel dishonest.
This is Guillermo del Toro's "toy movie," not unlike Michael Bay who fundamentally destroyed The Transformers with the regressively worse sequels to seek the box office fortune.
Pacific Rim would have been a fun movie, but, unfortunately, it is not. Perhaps Del Toro needs the lesson how James Cameron succeeds in producing the consistently and thoroughly entertaining movies, which do not directly or indirectly insult the audience, that result in box office records.
The movie is consigned to mediocrity by the reason of self-sabotage that belie Guillermo del Toro's impressively ambitious & creative energy yet might be tempered by the patronizingly smug attitude. Pacific Rim just feels dull and forgettable by the time the show is over, which makes it a truly "half-assed" movie.
** out of 4